Hal - A tough and interesting question (one that veers towards the business of the place I work, creating licenses for the use of copyrighted works...). In bumper-sticker speak: Copyright is (basically) 95 years. Trademark is forever (unless something happens to the mark). If your estate smartly markets your image and likeness as a trademark, it can go on pretty much forever. For example, I think -- I don't know -- that the Mark Twain Foundation would have collected licensing fees for the appearance of the Mark Twain character in an episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation, created during the 1990's. For the license status of other examples you cite - they are find-out-able, given time and world enough ;-) DDD